As most of you have probably heard, Conan O’Brien is out, and Jay Leno is back in, as host of The Tonight Show. The last two weeks have been a valedictory of sorts for O’Brien, whose lifelong goal was to host The Tonight Show and, rather than be forced out of his time slot, is leaving the network altogether. He’s thrown jokes at NBC fast and furious, and last night continued his barrage, only this time he hit NBC where it hurts: its pocketbook. He reminded viewers that he’s still entitled to spend the show’s enormous budget, and then introduced its “newest character:” the Bugatti Veyron Mouse, which is really just the world’s most expensive car with crudely-attached mouse ears and whiskers. The mouse’s theme song? “Satisfaction,” by the Rolling Stones. Why? Here’s Conan:

“Is this appropriate music for a car that looks like a mouse? No! Does it add anything at all to this comedy bit? No, it doesn’t. Is it crazy expensive to play on the air, not to mention the rights to re-air this clip on the Internet? Hell yes.”

Unsurprisingly, this clip isn’t available on Hulu.com but you can see it here, along with several others. It’s the third one down.

Hot dog! (I might have just given myself a lunch idea.) The MARS Retail Group just signed its first licensee for the company’s “Petcare Brands,” which include Pedgree, Whiskas, Greenies, Cesar, Sheba, and Royal Canin. Olivine International Marketing Ltd. will manufacture soft toys, rubber products, beds, carriers, gift baskets, tins, and plastic packaging for the Pedigree, Whiskas, Cesar, and Greenies brands to be available in stores in April.

John Capizzi, general manager of Licensing for MRG, said he hopes that the company’s success in licensing its chocolate brands would extend to pet care products, and noted that the company is actively seeking more licensees. If you’re interested, contact Debi Rosenfeld of MRG at debora.rosenfeld@effem.com.

Not a lot of time today, so we’ll just quickly drop the news that Playboy and Performance Brands have teamed up to launch the Hollywood Playboy Sun Collection, a line of indoor tanning products that will be sold exclusively at Hollywood Tans.

From the press release: “The product line will include sunless tanning sprays, tanning accelerator lotions, tanning and after-tan moisturizers, extenders and bronzers, and will retail from $20.00-$40.00. All products will be sold at Hollywood Tans locations beginning February 2010.”

After plowing through seven episodes of Jersey Shore this weekend… we can see the appeal here.

We’d be hard-pressed to summarize Martin Luther King, Jr. Day better than one of our friends did over here, where he wrote, “MLK Day is one of the best days there is to remember that what’s right and what’s legal are two entirely different things. Here’s to these two different things continuing to overlap with increasing frequency. Thanks again, Doc.”

While many American professionals and students are celebrating the holiday at home, we’re bringing attention to Scholastic Media’s “Be Big In Your Community Contest,” a community outreach effort that asks kids of all ages, teachers, parents, and community leaders “to submit a BIG idea that demonstrates Clifford’s BIG Ideas (Share, Play Fair, Have Respect, Work Together, Be Responsible, Be A Good Friend, Help Others, Be Truthful, Be Kind In Yourself) to enter for a chance to win $75,000 in community grants.” This is the second year of the contest, and American Family Insurance recently signed on as the first sponsor (helping to raise the prize from $50K to $75K), and PBS KIDS kicks off 10 days of related programming promoting Clifford’s idea today. Last year’s winning entry and runners-up can be seen here.

Norman Bridwell, the creator of Clifford the Big Red Dog, lives in Edgartown on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, one town over from where the author of this blog post grew up.

So we just finished a Halloween magazine, and in originally mocking up the issue we found this picture in a random Google Images search. It would be difficult for us to describe how much we love it, so you can just use your imagination. But it’s a lot. If anyone knows who the manufacturer of these beauties are (the costumes, that is), they’ll get a special place in a future issue of The Licensing Book.

In other costume news, we got a release yesterday from Rasta Imposta’s Gary Schneider, with whom we spoke for the Halloween issue, and he was ecstatic that one of the company’s costumes had been featured on American Idol… and on a successful contestant, no less.

He wrote: “Holly Harden of Rockmart, GA showed up for the Atlanta round of American Idol auditions wearing the GLAM ROCK GUITAR Red Costume. Noting that she ‘can’t play the guitar, but she can be the guitar’ Holly performed for the four American Idol judges, and after noting her fashion sense, the judges put her through to the next round of performances in Hollywood.”

Good news for Rasta Imposta, and great news for Holly Harden, to whom we wish luck owing to our twin fondnesses for Schneider and all things Atlanta, which pops up as relentlessly in our lives as bad singers do on Idol.

I (Bryan, the editor of TLB) am a big sports fan, and I’m always on the lookout for cool sports-related licensed products.

Today we got an email from the Lucks Food Decorating Company about licensed college logos that can be directly applied to cheese pizza.

I would like you to read that sentence again.

From the press release: “Lucks has acquired several collegiate licenses, including Virginia Tech, Michigan State, Iowa and nearly a dozen small college and universities. Harris Sachs handles licensing and distribution for the technology developed by Lucks.”

Oomph! It’s been a long time since we posted around here, but we promise that we’ll be more thorough more often. We just got through finishing up the inaugural edition of The Halloween Insider, a new mini-mag that will knock your socks off. At least, that’s what we hope! Now we’re working on our Toy Fair issue, and pounding away to make sure the best info is in your hands in less than a month. It’s another quick turnaround, but we’re ready enough for it that posting here every day shouldn’t be a problem. 2010 is the year of us bringing our magazine presence online, and then some. Check back here every day!